Of Beast and Beauty
by SoICouldBeYourFallenPrincess
Summary: It's pointless. Hopeless. Even if she weren't afraid of me, we'll always be enemies at the core. She rules a wicked, selfish city, and my tribe suffers for her peoples comfort. She's a queen; I am her prisoner. I resent her and she fears me, and there are times when i fear her too. I am her monster, and she is mine. But right now none of that matters./Ive done some updating, Enjoy!
1. In the Beginning

**Of Beast and Beauty**

In the beginning there was darkness, and in the darkness was a girl, and in the girl was a secret. The secret was as old as the cracked cobblestone streets of Tokyo, as particular as the roses that bloom eternally within the doomed cities walls, as poisonous as the forgotten history and the stories told in this place.

By the time the girl was born , the secret was all but lost. The stories had become scripture and only the brave- or very mad chose to care about them. The girl was raised on the stories and never dared question their truth, until the day her mother took her walking outside beyond the city walls.

In the wilds outside, a voice as fathomless as the ocean spoke to her of a time before the doomed cities, before wholes became halves and bargains were made in blood. It told her of terrible consequences. It begged her to listen, to live….

_In the early days, I was one, _The voice whispered. _I was this world and the world was me, and the dance was seamless and sweet. _

_then the ships came from a faraway world. They came belching smoke and fire, stinking of space and beings living and breathing, loving and hating, hoping and despairing in close quarters for too many centuries I watched the humans spill from their ships, blinking in my sun, marveling at my moons, weeping as they set foot on land for the first time, and I was... Curious. _

_I teased my magic between their spindle fingers, into their seashell ears, around the pulsing heads of their babes, finding them as delightful as my own native species, but soft and unprepared for life on our world. Knowing they would die without my help, I began to touch them, to transform them. It was what i had done since the beginning of time when i was only the land and the sea and a longing for something more to keep me company._

_But the humans were afraid of my touch, of the magic that caused their smooth skin to scale and their bodies to bunch with unfamiliar muscle. They cursed me. They praised me. They retreated into the great domes they built and hid themselves away, locking those already touched by my magic outside their gates and called them monsters. _

_They made promises and offerings and dangerous bargains, pulling at me until I was no longer one but two: The pure heart and the dark heart, something both more and much, much less. _

_The dark heart, my shadow self, soon developed an equally dark hunger. ot told the humans in the doomed cities of its longs, promising them safely and abundance in exchange for blood and pain, for the voluntary laying down of ones life, the ultimate act of devotion. It gave them magic words to speak and tool their rulers as offerings and in each city, in the place where the sacrificial blood was spilled, enchanted roses grew, a symbol of the covenant between the smooth skins and and their new god._

_Decades passed, and the dark heart red and grew powerful, stealing vitality from the planet, determined that none but its chosen few should thrive. And so the humans in the cities learned to bleed and the demons in the wilds learned to hate, and I slowly faded away, stretched thinner with every passing year, until only a precious few heard my voice. _

_Finally I realized I had to reach out to the humans in a new way. Before it was to late. Using the power of transformation upon myself for the first time, I took the shape of a demon woman with long black hair and smooth flowing white robes. A body to give the humans, one last chance to show compassion._

_I went from city to city, introducing myself as an enchantress, a priestess of the planet. I begged to be allowed inside. I begged the humans to abandon their dark worship and accept the gifts of their new world. I begged them to make me whole, to restore the innocence I'd lost when they had begun to call me God and Devil._

_But the gates of the doomed cities remained shut. The humans had no concern for the rest of the world, so long as their own desired are met. They spit harsh words at me through cracks in their walls. They shot weapons through slots in their gates. Arrows pierced my chest, and my new blood spilled onto the ground._

_I stumbled into the wilds, seeking shelter, but in the camps of the demons I found no aid. Sensing I was not one of their own, they bared their teeth, called me witch and turned me away._

_My new body dying and my hopes for peace shattered, I gathered the last of my magic and sent a curse sweeping across the world. I cursed the eyes of the Demons to run dry and never know the release of tears, but i cursed the humans even more terribly. From that day froward, a precious few of their babes would be born, kissed by the Demons traits they so despised. The rest would be born with missing pieces, trapped in bodies as twisted and wrong as the dark heart they worshiped. _

_The Dark heart managed to spare a few of the city dwellers- those from families who had spilled blood for their go- but my curse had its way with the rest. The rest of the humans became more monstrous than the creatures they feared and no amount of blood spill could make them whole again._

_There is only one way to undo the curse: If even one Human and one Demon can learn to love the other more than anything else- more than safety or __prejudice, nore than privilege or revenge, more even than their own selves- then the curse that division has brought upon the world will be broken and made whole._

_For a time. I had hope that my last act of cruelty would sway the humans in a ways my pleas for mercy had not. But as time passed- hundreds and hundreds of years slipping away as I tossed on the wind, a ghost haunting lands where I used to live and breathe- I saw I had accomplished nothing. The world outside of the domes continued to die. The land and the creatures upon it cried out for aid, but I could only watch as elders suffered and children starved. I had nothing left to give. I had lost everything but my voice._

_And what good is a voice when so few will listen?_

_Will you listen, child? _ the pure heart of the planet asked the girl._ Will you do what others would not? there is proof of the story I tell. I can show you where to look. I can help you find the truth._

The truth had been hidden away, the voice told the princess, but she could find it if she was brave.

The girl wasnt brave. Her fifth birthday was still three months away. she wasnt a hero with a sword; she wasnt even allowed a knife to cut her food, for fear she would sever a finger. But still the voice haunted her dreams. It cried out for justice, but the girl learned to cry louder, to stand on her tower balcony and howl, terrifying the common people living in the center of the city.

She screamed and fought the servants who were sent to care for her. she clawed at her fathers face and bared her teeth at him in rage. She wept and ripped her dolls to pieces- heads and legs pulled asunder, every dress torn in two, every tiny crown bent and broken- but she never spoke of her secret. She never admitted why she was so so angry. and afraid.

Months passed, and eventually the Pure Heart spoke to her no longer. the girls misery and rage slipped away and sank like a stone,

deep,

deep,

deep,

Inside her, until the truth was as forgotten as hope and beauty and all other things given to the darkness.

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**Review Review Review! I wrote this paper for a class of mine and ive decided to run with it! Tell me what you think!**


	2. Rin

**Chapter 2: Rin**

The city is beautiful tonight. I can tell by the smells drifting through needles open window- the last of the autumn flowers clinging to their stalks, their perfume crispier and cleaner than the summer blossoms that came before: fruit sweet and heavy on the trees; and above it all the heady fragrance of the roses blooming in the royal garden.

I will be out amoung it soon. The tower hold me by day but by night I am a wanderer, a good fellow of the moons. The yellow moon, the blue moon, even the red moon, with its beams that cut angrily through the dome when the Demons light their funeral fires in the desert. I call the moons by their secret names; they call me Rin. I am not their princess, or their mistress, or their daughter or prisoner. I am Rin of the wild hair and quick feet clever in the darkness. I am Rin of the shadows, my secret made meaningless by the moonlight.

I am ready to see my moons, to see anything.

Its been four endless nights since I visited the roses.

The demons draw closer to Tokyo than ever before. There are city soldiers everywhere, prowling the wall walks, fortifying the gates, testing for weaknesses in the dome, padding the trails from the city center to the flower gardens to the orchards to the fields, and back again in their soft boots.

They would never survive in the desert outside. Their boots are glorified house slippers, their feet soft and vulnerable beneath. Im certain I have more calluses on my feet than any of Baba's soldiers, rough spots on my toes and heels that catch and hold to stone.

I practically feel the stone of the balcony's ledge digging into my skin now, grounding me as I hover in the hungry air at the edge of the world….

My toes itch. My tongue taps behind my teeth. My skin sweats beneath my heavy blanket. Just a few more minutes. Surely Needle will put her light out soon. My maid insists its impossible to smell wax melting from across the room, but I can smell it, and it keeps me awake, even when im not biding my time, waiting for my chance to escape.

An untended flame is dangerous, and this tower has burned before.

I dream about that fire almost every night- flames blooming like a terrible flower, devouring the curtains and the bed, licking at my night-gown. Baba;s strong hands throwing me to the ground and my head striking the stones before the world goes black. And finally the door splintering and my mothers cry as she hurls herself from the tower balcony.

That night is the clearest memory from the time before. One of my only memories. I don't remember my mothers face or the color of Babas eyes. I don't remember romps in the garden or holiday dinners at court, though Baba swears we had them. I don't even remember my face. My mother forbade mirrors in the tower. Now I have no use for them. My eyes never recovered from the night Baba saved me from the flames. For a day or two, the healers thought they might- I saw flashes of light and color in the dark - but within a week it was obvious my sight was gone forever. Ive been blind since I was for years old, the year my mama joined the long line of dead queens.

"Terribly unfair," Ive heard people whisper when they dont realize the figure in the garden with the cloaked pulled up over her head isnt just another noble out for a walk, "that the princess should lose her mama and her eyes all at once."

I want to tell them that my eyes are not lost. _See? Here they are. Still in my head!_ But i dont say a word. I cant reveal myself. No one knows what the princess of tokyo looks like these days. I havent been knowlingly allowed out of the tower walls since i was ten. If the Demons breach the walls, Father is certain I'll be safe here until the mutants are destroyed. There is only one door leading into the tower , and Baba and his Chief Advisor Junjie are the only ones who know where the key is hidden.

They have no idea that i dont need a key, or a door.

I only need my sentry to put out her light and go to sleep!

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Sorry for the really short chapter but i promise i will write more soon! and don't worry Sesshomaru will make his grand appearance soon!


	3. My Escape

I wait a few ore minutes until Needles breaths comes slowly and evenly- before slipping out of bed and eating up the thick carpet between my bedroom and the balcony with eager feet. Seventeen steps to the bedroom door; twenty seven down the hallway, past the sitting room, through the music room and out onto the balcony; then three more and the careful fall to freedom. Careful, so I don't follow in my mothers footsteps. Careful, so that my escape is only for tonight, not forever.

I brace my hands on the balcony ledge and push off the ground with bare toes, drawing my knees up to my chest, landing atop the parapet in an easy crouch. My fingertips brush the cold marble; My cotton overalls draw up my shins.

The overalls are an orchard workers suit with wide legs and deep pockets. I stole them from a supply shed near the apple orchard two years ago. Now the legs grow to short. I am seventeen and very tall for a person. Very, very tall. I am taller that Baba, taller even than Junjie, whom ive heard called "an imposing man." I am long and tall, and my skin is coarser than any other Ive touched. Even Needle's work-roughened hands are softer than mine, the princess bathes in creams, washes only in honey soaps. My rough peeling flesh is my greatest clue, back when I was still sorting out the mystery myself.

Now I understand. I know the real reason I am locked away from my people.

"I may be tainted but I am not a fool." I whisper into the too-tranquil air. It gobbles up mu words and swollows them deep, smug in its assurance that the quiet order of the dome will never be disturbed. Seconds later I bare my teeth in a most ferocious smile, and jusm from the ledge,

The night comes alive. Cool air snatches my hair, lifting it from my shoulders, tugging at my scalp. It rushes up my pant legs , shivering over my body and up my neck. My blood races, and my throat traps a giddy squeal. The tips of my toes beat with their own individual heartbeats as they make contact with the curved edge of the first roof and I take a running leap for the second one, deliciously alive with fear.

Ive made this descent a thousand times or more, but still a taste of the original terror remains. The first time, my feet didn't know the dips and curves and footholds for themselves. The falls- the six curved roofs below the tower balcony- were only a story told by Baba as we sat in the afternoon sun. I couldn't see the truth of my way out until I was already over the edge, dropping the ten feet to the top of the first roof. But it was there. Just as my father had said. As were the second and the fourth and the sixth and the last tumble into the cabbage garden.

I plop down on the hard ground between the cabbage rows- no fertile patch of soil is wasted in Tokyo- and fold back into a crouch, staying low as I shuffle back and scatter the dirt with my hands, concealing the two deep prints from my landing. There are rarely anyone this close to my prison but I don't set off right away. With all the guards milling around, Baba surely has patrol stationed near the tower.

I wait, squirming my toes, ears straining in the silence broken only by the faint buzz of the hives at the bottom of the hill. The bees are quieter at night but still busy. I like the hum, the evidence of non-human activity. We used to have wild birds under the dome, too- all sorts but the last of them died years ago. Father said it was avian epidemic.

"Why didn't it take the messenger birds , then?" I asked him at the time. "Or the ducks and geese by the orchard pond? Why did only the wild birds die?"

"Wild things don't always survive under the dome." He said.

There was something in his voice that day…

It made me wonder if he knows I'm not as biddable as I pretend to be, if he knows I'm wild, and doesnt hate me for it. Or at least doesnt blame me. It's not as if I asked to be born this way, with a taste for defiance and a longing for the hot desert wind, the wind i felt only once, the day my mother took me on a forbidden walk outside the city walls.

I'll never have that wind again- if I left the city for any length of time, I would die of thirst or sun poisoning, if the Demons didnt get me first- but i can have my night runs. I can have the autumn smells, the satin of rose petals between my fingertips, and the sweeter sting of the roses thorns.

My mouth fills with a taste like honey and vinegar mixed together. The rose garden. How I love and loathe it. How I need it and hate the needing. But still, I'll go there first tonight. I want to see the color of the sky, know which of my moons hangs heaviest above the dome. I am efficient in my darkness, but how i crave the moonlight.

Its hard to wait, But I dont move a muscle, dont twitch a nostril, even when my nose begins to itch in the way noses never fail to do when your not able to scratch it. Two minutes, three, and finally my patience is rewarded with the soft, rhythmic scuffing of leather boots on stone.

_Scuff, scuff, scuff, scuff. I am a soldier, this is my song and i shall scuff it all day long. I am a soldier and these are my boots, the biggest shoes for the biggest brutes!_

My lip curls. Soldiers. Ridiculous. Tokyo needs a third as many, and should be stationed at the desert gate and hill gate and around the wall walks, where the rest of the city won't have to bear witness to their strutting around.

Our only hope is to keep the demons out. If they make it inside, the city will fall. If weve learned anything from the destruction of the other doomed kingdoms, it should be that. The Demons are bigger, stronger, with poison seeping from their claws, and skin as thick and hard as armor. They can see in the dark and live on nothing but a daily ration of water and cactus fruit. They are brutal beast determined to distroy humanity and take out cities for themselves.

But our bounty will never be theres. If they kill the keepers of the covenant, Tokyo will turn to dust like the other cities and the land beyond our walls. Magic is loyal only to those who have bought an paid for it. With blood. Hundreds of years of blood, blood enough to fill the riverbed beneath the city and carry us all to the poison sea.

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**Okay guys here's the deal. I will not post anymore chapters unless I get alot of good feedback. Alot of people are reading this story and not reviewing and its a little frustrating. So when i get 15 reviews, I will post the chapter introducing Sesshomaru. :)**


	4. Sesshomaru

Sesshomaru

Theres a woman in the garden.

No, a girl. Tall but young. She runs like a child. Big loping steps with her arms held out and her head bobbing like one of the giant flowers.

Ive never seen so many flowers. Flowers, plants, fruit, green things bursting out all over. When we first crawled from the caverns, I stumbled in the face of it. I fell, and my hands felt alien against the soft, wet grass. The smells devastate me. I don't have Demon or human names for them, cant tell where one smell ends and another begins. The land under the glass dome overwhelms me with its life.

Fierce, vicious life. Stolen life. Paid for with the deaths of my people.

Were starving. The children first. Their skin cracks and bleeds. They cry until they have no strength left, and their silence is worse than their moans. The tribal medicine men have become death dealers. Better to eat poison root and have the pain over in an instant, than to die a slow painful death.

The autumn harvest of cactus fruit has bought my people some time, but only a little bit. We must have the roses. According to our chiefs visions, they are the key to the magic that keeps the land under the domes flourishing and abundant.

"Take them at any cost," Naira said when we left out camp a month ago. "Die for them. Kill for them if there is no other way." Our chief is a peaceful woman. But these are not the time for peace.

Or mercy. If the girl sees me, she'll scream. The guards will come. Theyre everywhere. They were here a few minutes ago. I hid in the orchard but they'll come again, and I might not be so lucky next time. The moons are so bright, its practically daylight under the dome. I have to act. If Inuyasha were here instead of on the other side of the city, he would have already slit the girls throat and wrestled a plant from the soil, and would be halfway back to the caverns.

It took generations of digging to build the tunnel down to the underground river. It will take generations more to find another way in if we fail, generations we my not live to birth. This path will serve us only once. When the humans realize what we've done, they'll shore up their underground defenses, build another impenetrable wall. They already expect an attack will come. Their guards shot arrows at our scouts as they circled the city. This is our only chance.

_Kill Her_. I hear my brothers voice in my head. _One death is nothing, a drop of water in a sea of demon blood._

I flex my hands. My claws grow loose inside the grooves above my nail beds. Theres no choice. Theres no time.

I step from behind the thick tree, out of the shadows, into her line of sight. I bend my knees and bare my teeth. My claws slick from their hiding places as I ready myself for the rush. Her eyes fall on me, Huge round eyes in a face so different from my peoples, but somehow still so…. Familiar.

I hesitate. I shiver.

I didn't expect the humans to look like this. I expected softness like uncooked dough, empty eyes sunk in privileged-rotted flesh. I didn't expect to see whisper thin skin peeling like old tree bark, skin so pale I can see the blue blood flowing beneath. I didn't expect a sharp chin or a sharper nose or eyes that seem to see everything.

Except me.

She doesnt seem to see me. She doesn't startle. She doesn't scream. Her gaze doesn't waver. She looks past me, into the orchard. I turn back to find her still motionless, her eyes focused on some far away nothing. The truth hits, and my claws slide back into their chambers with a _shup_ so hard, it hurts.

Shes blind. I was about to kill a blind girl. Maybe even a simple blind girl. Now that ive seen her face, theres no doubt shes nearly a woman, but skips and plays in the flowers like a child. No near adult of the demon people would behave that way unless they were rattled in the brain.

A strange heat creeps up my neck, making my face burn. Shame. that's what this is. Not something ive had reason to feel more than once or twice, but now it curdles inside me.

This isn't the way. No woman or children. Were not like the humans. They are soulless as a sandstorm. We are better. We know the power of transformation. This planet has changed us but its magic is good magic. It would be enough to sustain us all if the humans hadn't twisted it to serve their own selfish purposes.

They are murderers. Their doomed cities rob the surrounding lands of vitality. Their prosperity is paid for by the slow death of the desert, and if something doesn't change, it will lead to the extinction of my people. This raid isn't about killing humans; its about keeping them from killing anymore of us…

I back into the shadows under the orchard trees. Ill wait. The girl will leave eventually, and then Ill-

"Please," she says

I freeze, skin crawling, claws sliding out again. Was I wrong? Has she-

"Show me this garden," She begs. "Show me myself. Just this once."

She isn't talking to me. There must be someone else. But where? The flower bed looks dense, the thorns dangerous. I ease closer, circling around her on quiet feet, braced for an attack. But there is nothing in the shadows beneath the roses. Only her hand, with a thorn deep in one finger and her blood dripping slowly to the earth below.

"You've shown me the nobles cottages and the soldiers on the walls and the desert outside and the monsters who live there," She says; spitting each word. "But you refuse to show me whats right here, right now! All I want is to see my face! You promised me. You promised!"

The girl is rattled. No question.

"I hate you," she whispers, sightless eyes narrowed. "Ill set fire to the whole lot of you." She laughs, a cruel laugh, not childlike at all. "Ill do it. I swear I will if-"

She breaks off with a cry as the flowers begin to move. Squirm. Coil like snakes preparing to strike. The giant blossoms roll on their stems, turning to fix me with their alien eyes.

Naira's visions are sound. The roses do have magic, greater than the planet magic that touched our people in the early years, granting us size and strength and protection from the sun and our new predators; greater than the blessings that our dead bestow as their final flames burn. And the girl knows the magic. She speaks to the flowers.

A plan takes shape quickly. Ill trap the girl, creep up behind her and hold my claws to her throat. Ill make her dig up one of the bushes and whisper the roses secrets while she does it. If shes helpful and quiet, Ill let her go. But if not, Ill-

"No," She gasps. Her eyes go wide. Her thin chest heaves as her breath grows faster. If I didn't know she was blind, id think-

"No!" she says louder this time. "Help me!"

I lunge for her, but she darts away, leaping off the edge of the flowers bed, leaving a smattering of blood behind. "The Demons are in the city!" She runs as fast as the desert wind, around the flower bed and down a stone path lined with more flowers. "Demons! In the royal garden! Help me! Help Me!

I race after her. I have no choice. I need her silence before its too late, before-

More humans appear at the end of the path, spears raised. I know the moment they see me. I see their silhouettes ripple in the yellow moonlight. I smell their fear. I lift my clawed hands a roar- a warning to my people. Wherever their search has taken them, my brother and father and the others in our raid party will hear me and know ive been discovered. They'll make it back to the caverns and into river before theyre caught, but they'll do it without the roses we came for. Weve failed. Ive failed! I let this girl doom my tribe. I should have killed her. I should have slit her throat and lapped her blood up with my tongue. Now everyone I love will die- My father, my brother, my friends and especially my son.

He's only six weeks old. He'll be the first on the pyre.

I roar again, a sound so terrible the girl screams and stumbles, falling onto the ground. I leap and land on top of her before the guards can throw their spears. They'll kill me sooner or later but I will kill this girls first. Ill take her life as payment for the destruction of my people.

I grab her shoulder and flip her on her back, the better to get to her throat. Her skin gives like water beneath my claws. Her blood is the exact color of the roses, red that swallowed brown and black and holds them prisoner in its belly.

I stare at it. Its beautiful. Terrifying.

Ive never killed something so large before. So large or so delicate. I didn't even mean to cut her. I didn't….


	5. Hopeless

**Sesshomaru**

"Do it," She whispers, her voice fearful but angry too. She trembles beneath me, her long body quaking, her eyes once again without focus. "Do it! Kill me!"

Her words make my blood burn. "Youre so ready to die?" I demand in her language. "My people would do anything to live. _Anything!"_

Her eyes bulge in her narrow face. "You-You-s-speak. How-"

A spear falls next to my arm, and glances off my bare shoulder, but my skin isn't like theirs, so thin that its pointless to have skin at hide is thick, scaled over my chest, over my neck and shoulders and down my back. If they want to kill me they would have to hit my belly. I lift my head, roaring at the two guards who've dared come close enough to hurl their weapons.

"Wait!" the girl screams "Take it alive don't kill it!"

_It_

I snarl into her face. She screams, her eyes squeeze shut. Her hands cover her mouth, muffling her sobs. Another spear flies. And another but I knock them away. Rage making my warriors reflexes even swifter.

I am not an _It. _I am a desert man. I have nineteen years. I have a son. I might have had a mate if there were no Tokyo, no tunnel to dig, no scouting missions to take me away from my tribe over and over again. But Kagura chose a different mate and my son sleeps in another family's hut. Now my son will die and be burned without ever knowing my face. Because of THEM!

I roar again and hope it rattles the loose pieces of her brain. Stupid girl. Stupid Human! Stupid-

"Stop!" She shouts, hands lashing out. Her tiny fist hit my mouth, bruising my lip as they bounce off my teeth. Before I can react, her fingers return to my face, gentle this time, curious. I freeze, too shocked to pull away.

"Hold your weapons,"She orders the soldiers. Boots shuffle forward, but she shouts "I am Rin Yeujihua. My word is _the_ word! Hold!

_Yuejihua_. The name of the ruling family. It cant…. Not this girl. This strange one.

The guard closest breathes deeply; another gasps like a woman. A third says "My lady-"

"My word is the word and will one day be law. Hold your weapons." Silence falls. In it, her fingers continue to trace the outline of my lips, discover my nose, smooth around my eyes. When she reaches the scaled patches around my eyes, she hesitates, but eventually moves on. She finds the place where my silver braid begins and smooths a shaking hand down the ridge to the end falling over my shoulder. "Its soft," She whispers. "What color is it?"

"You saw."

"I am blind." Her eyelids flutter. Her eyes are not black or brown like every other pair of eyes ive seen. They are dark green and as strange as the flowers in her garden. They are sightless now but I would have sworn she saw me before. How else could she have known to run?

"Silver," I snap, keeping one eye on the soldiers.

"Unlike my people." Her breath shudders out "But you have very sharp teeth, I think."

"You think?"

"I havent felt many teeth." Her fingers come to her shoulder, covering the place where my claws pierced her skin. "Will the poison take effect soon?" She asks in a small voice.

"Poison?"

"In your claws."

The guards inch closer torn between obeying their princess and saving her life. I smile at them, baring my undoubtedly sharp, bone white teeth. Now that I know how valuable the girl is, I have hope. Not much, but enough to make my voice smooth when I say "Take me to the underground river and set me free. Before I go, I will tell you how to rid yourself of the poison."

"And if I don't?"

"You will die."

"Maybe im already dead," she whispers, her words as haunted as her eyes, "the roses are hungry. I felt it tonight."

Shes out of her mind. She makes me… Afraid. That's what I feel when I look into her vacant eyes. Why I should fear a girl I have pinned to the ground, I don't know. She's helpless, fragile. I should be afraid of her guards and their weapons.

The thought has barely formed when I feel it, the sharp jab of metal deep in the back of my thigh where there are no scales to protect me. I cry out and swipe at the guard with my claws. I graze his leg and reach for the spear, but the guards in front don't give me time. One snatches the girl from beneath me and drags her across the stones while the second- a man with a knife longer than my claws- lunges for my throat.

I knock him away with a growl that transforms into a howl of pain as the man behind me twists and wrenches the spear out of my leg. Blood rushes from the wound and I scream.

"No!" The girl cries. "Don't kill him!"

The guard drives his weapon into my other leg, just above my knee, hobbling me. I wail like the grieving at the funeral fires. Even if I fight off the guards and get to my feet, I'll never be able to run.

"No! No!" The princess is suddenly by my side, tripping over my arm and falling on the ground beside me. "Take him alive!" she pants, turning to address the air around her, blind eyes wide. "Take him alive. We need him to tell us how to remove the poison, otherwise I will die."

My claws dig into the stone so hard, my knuckles ache. There is no poison. Stupid humans believe such strange things about my people. But I can arrange for her to die. Shes close. I could slit her throat before the guards can even act.

My pulse beats faster. The agony in my legs fades to a high-pitch hum of pain that urges me to act, to kill. This is my last chance to take vengeance. This is their princess, the woman who will be queen and continue the devastation of the lands outside the domed cities until there was no living thing left.

I should do it. I _will _do it!

My heart races. Faster, faster, until I feel the rush of the blood in my ears. Faster until sweat beads on my lips and my scales move farther apart to accomidate the heat building up inside my body. Faster until my teeth ache and my brain pulses and colors swim through the night air.

Red for the blood that's been spilled.

Blue for the sky, ill never see again.

Green for her eyes.

Her eyes…

They are the last thing I see before black sweeps in, stealing all colors, all of my hopes away.

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Hey guys I know it takes me a while to update but i am really busy at the moment. Enjoy:) Thanks for reviewing!


	6. Poison

**Rin**

There's a muffled _kapluph_, and the demon man's arm goes limp. It lolls against my leg, heavy and so hot that it burns through my overalls. He's as hot as fire, as hot as I would imagine the desert sand against my bare feet.

No human could live though such heat. Not for long. I don't know about a demon, but he certainly wasn't this warm before.

"Take him to the cells," my breath coming fast. "Bring the healers to see him. Find the king and tell him I'll meet him there."

Baba. By the moons, he'll be terrified. And livid. He's already locked me away. What will he do now? When he learns I've been out of the tower and met such trouble? Put bars on the windows? Brick up the stairs? The thought of being more trapped than I am is almost enough to make me hope that the poison in my blood kills me.

I shivered. I asked the demon to kill me. _Why?_ What was I thinking? I don't want to die. I want to live. I want-

"But, Princess-"

"Do as she says," comes a worried voice from my left. "We need that monster to awake. He might be the only one who knows the cure. Ill escort Princess Rin. Hurry!" The air fills with the scuff, scuff of soldiers boots, then grunts and groans as the heavy demon is hauled from the ground and with more scuff, scuffs is carried away.

"Let me help you Princess," the remaining soldier says. His voice is familiar, though I don't know why. Ive never spoken to a soldier before. Ive never spoken to any men at all except for my father, Jungie and now the demon.

The demon is definitely a man, a man the size of a small mountain, the only being ive ever seen longer than I am. My people are almost invariably small of stature and petite of bone, with cream-white skin and straight black hair. The demon had beautiful white hair, and he stood a head taller than me, with shoulders the size of boulders and armour covered in orange and golden scales, like a fish but smooth and dry.

No, not like a fish… Like a snake!

The thought makes me shudder as I take the soldiers hand and let him help me to my feet.

"Are you able to walk, my lady?" His voice pricks at me like one of the needles in my maids apron pocket.

Its how needle got her name. The day she came to give me a bath, I had just turned five and was still feral with grief. She started unbuttoning my dress, and I shoved her away, pricking my finger on the sharps in her apron in the process.

Strangely, the pain calmed me. Needles gentle touch, her hands like birds alighting on my head, my shoulder, my cheek, communicating concern with every cool brush against my skin calmed me more. She was only fifteen, but her touch reminded me of my mama's. I let her stay, when I'd sent every other companion away.

I'm surprised to find I want her now. I would very much like to have needles slim fingers under mine, making the signs for "Calm Down" and "We'll sort this out." I didn't think I was afraid of anything, but now I am. I'm afraid.

My fingers tremble as I touch the torn flesh at my shoulder. I don't feel the poison yet, but I could. At any moment. I try to swallow, but my throat is too tight. I don't want to die! Not like this! Its not fair! Ive lived with death hovering over my shoulders my entire life, but I never-

"Should I carry you, Princess?" The soldiers hand warms the small of my back. My spine ripples as I twist away. His touch is foreign, unexpected, too strange after the night ive had.

"Im sorry. I shouldn't…." The soldier clears his throat. "I was wounded as well."

"You were?"

"The demon tore the skin at my leg." He sounds younger than he did before. Scared.

I reach out, brushing his shoulder with my hand, surprised to find that my hand is parallel to the ground. The soldier is nearly my size, shorter only by a little bit. "Thank you for helping me."

"Please don't thank me." His hand finds the small of my back again, settling over the knobby bones of my spine. The warmth of him- cooler than the demon but warmer than me, in my sweat drenched clothes, warms my hips. My stomach. My chest. "It is a privilege to defend the life of our queen.

"Im not-" Before I realize what's happening, soft hot skin presses against my half-open mouth. I flinch but the soldiers hand at my back holds me still as his hips move against mine, as his tongue flicks out, bidding a cautious hello.

A kiss. _This _is a kiss. It is…. Slipperier than I imagined. His _tongue_ is…

A _tongue?_ who would have thought?

A part of me wants to laugh at this soldier and the jabs of the slick muscle invading my mouth, but part of me is…_ fluttering._ Something stirs inside of me. Something urges me to tilt my head and move my lips, to dart my own tongue out- quick as a wink- for a taste.

Salty. Sweet. Hint of cabbage. Something familiar in the midst of all the unfamiliar feelings that are making my skin warm and my insides as hot as the Demon mans flesh.

I pull back, heart beating too fast. "We should go to the cells. That demon might have revealed the cure."

"We should but if we were to die tonight, I-"

"Noone is going to die tonight," I say with more confidence than I feel. "Come with me." I start down the path but stop after only a few steps. Ive never been to the cells. Ive never dared go that deep into the city proper.

I hold out my hand. "Guide me, Hurry!

"Yes my lady." A second later, his arm is under mine. Its strong and densely muscled, but the bare skin at his wrist is as soft as all the skin Ive ever felt in my life. Much, _much _softer than mine. This soldier is a whole citizen of Tokyo.

So why did he kiss me? A tainted girl, too tall and too wide, with skin peeling from the chest down in a frustrated attempt to reveal the scales that lurk just beyond the surface? Im obviously not tainted enough to be sent to the banished camp but even the slightest sign of mutilation is reviled. From what Ive overheard, the whole city would rather die than marry someone with even the slightest of Demon features.

_He's hardly thinking of marriage. He's thinking he's going to die and yours might be the final lips he encounters…_

The thought banishes the last of the tingling sensation from my body, expelling it like a fish bone. I lift my chin, holding my head up high as we move swiftly toward the city proper. I do my best not to think about dying with the taste of a stranger on my lips.

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_**Thank You to all of my Reviewers! I really appreciate it all! I would also appreciate some constructive criticism. What would you like to happen in this story? Review and let me know! **  
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	7. Pain

Rin

_Dying. _If I'm dying, I'll never get the chance to tell my father that I have dreams that live outside the tower, to confess how much I need something… more. Tears fill my eyes, but I don't cry. I sip in a breath and hold the air in my lungs.

The soldier pats my rough hand with his softer one. "My name is Onigumo. Ill stay with you until the healers come. My father would want that."

"Your Father?"

"Naraku." he says, his voice dipping and sliding on the last part. That's why he sounds familiar. Naraku's son. "My father's spoken of me?"

"No, I didn't know he had a son."

"Oh." The word is a stone plunking sadly into the water.

"But he doesn't speak to me often," I say, feeling a _little_ sorry, despite my fear and the shame still lingering on my lips. "Most of the time hes only in the tower to steal my father away on business."

"Yes, the king…I…" He sighs, a pained sound that sets fretful things stirring in my stomach.

"What about the king?"

"Nothing." He walks faster. "Your wounds need treatment."

"No! Tell me! What were you going to say?"

"I cant," he whispers. "Your health is the most important thing."

"I feel fine." I do. The scratches still sting, but the feverish sensation is gone. Im no healer but us doesn't feel as though there is any poison in my blood. It makes me wonder…

Has my slight mutation made me immune to the creature's venom, or… could the texts about the poison in the demons claws be wrong? Was the demon lying when he said I'd die without his help, saying whatever he had to say in order to escape into the river?

"The river!" My hand tightens on Onigumo's arm. "The demons wanted me to take him to the caverns where the underground river flows. That must be how they-"

"We know." He interrupts, making me sputter. I cant remember the last time I was interrupted. Have I ever been interrupted? "There are three other creatures. Their hair was damp when we captured them. My father guessed where they'd come from. There are guards in place now. No more Demons will get into the city tonight."

"Did you kill the others?" I ask, afraid to hear the answer. The demons are terrifying, but they also have language and pain. They arent the complete savages Baba and Naraku have made them out to be. There's a chance we may be able to make peace with them.

"Not yet." Even with those two words, I could hear the bloodlust in them.

"They speak our language," I say gently. "They might not be as savage as we thought."

Onigumo's muscles flex beneath my hand. "Theyre worse. Theyre devils!"

"Devils or not, it doesn't make sense to kill them if we don't have to. It will only make things worse for the city." I think of the demon man, how he endured my fingers roaming his face. He could have killed me, but he didn't. He showed mercy. How can we do anything but show him the same?

"It will be up to you to decide, of course." Onigumo's voice is stiff. "My Queen."

"Don't call me that!" I snap, wishing I didn't need his arm to guide me. I'd Prefer _not_ to be touched by this soldier anymore. "Im not queen yet."

"Yes my lady," he whispers. "You are."

I am?

I… _am._

The ground turns against me, and I trip over the raised edge of a paving stone. Onigumo catches me and holds me up by the elbow. His hand is bigger than I thought. It circles my bone, making me feel like a child, but I am not a child.

I am queen. I…

That means…

"Baba…" There isn't enough breath in me to finish the question.

This cant be true. Baba was with me this morning. We had breakfast together, sat on the balcony and talked about the harvest festival and made plans for our private celebration after his duties in the city were finished. He agreed to allow Needle to make him a hat for the party. He laughed one of his rare, light laughs and asked me to play him a song on my harp. He was so alive.

He _has _to be alive.

"It was the demons." Onigumo says. "The king was walking the path around the lake. One of the creatures surprised him and his guards. All five of them were killed, and your father…"

"The demons…" My mouth was to dry. My lips have gone numb.

"We captured the thing, not far from the court cottages. There was blood on its hands. It laughed when it heard that some of it was the kings."

Blood. Baba's blood. My baba.

My baba is dead. Those monsters have killed him. Now I am all alone. And I am _queen. _Queen so much sooner than I ever thought I would be queen, and now there is nothing left for me but pain.

"We'll kill them!" I dig my nails into Onigumo's arm. "All of them. I'll do it myself."

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**Hey guys! Im sorry it took me so long to update... and again, sorry I had to leave it on a cliffy! lol I hope you enjoy!**


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